I've found this thing, it's kind of shit but it works.
It's a 1.7ghz Athlon of some type, 768mb ram, 40gb hard drive, mid tower atx design. I probably don't actually need another computer but why the hell not? Only question is, what do I do with this thing?
Do you have any sort of home LAN or wirless network? You could throw a bigger hard drive in there and run it as a media server.
+1
give it a ton of hard drive space, as much as you could fit, and then use it as a file server. These types of machines also make awesome dedicated Torrent boxes if you are into that kind of thing.. it doesn't even need its own display. You can use a torrent program (can't remember which one) and set it up for control from another computer.
Do you have any sort of home LAN or wirless network? You could throw a bigger hard drive in there and run it as a media server.
+1
give it a ton of hard drive space, as much as you could fit, and then use it as a file server. These types of machines also make awesome dedicated Torrent boxes if you are into that kind of thing.. it doesn't even need its own display. You can use a torrent program (can't remember which one) and set it up for control from another computer.
If it's XP or above you can also just use Remote Desktop and use any torrent program.
Would a wimpy cpu like that be usable for a media pc? I could poke a hole in the floor under my TV in the living room and run cable to it I suppose. Maybe take the time to learn to use some lightweight Linux while I'm at it?
Well, I'm thinking that a media PC (that sits next to your TV and records shows and whatnot) is not necessarily the same as a media or file server. When you purpose it as a server it's basically just going to be a big, network-attached hard drive. Semantics, I guess. It would just exist to hold files so other computers can access them.
For HTPC use yes, you would probably need a beefier CPU/GPU.
For HTPC use yes, you would probably need a beefier CPU/GPU.
Not if he's running SD content. I had an old P4 1.8GHz with 256MB of RAM and integrated video that was my movie/TV show/Etc box for a while. It's something to think about if he doesn't own an HDTV.
Do you have any interest in having a LAN party? Because if so, you've got your dedicated server.
Or you could always get it up and running on a wireless network and snag a decent speaker system and now you've got your mp3 collection plus free streaming Internet Radio in your living room or kitchen.
Dicking around with Linux is also a good idea (and won't invalidate the second or {depending on the game} first options either).
you can get a GPU for like $34 that will work on an older PC (AGP probly?) it isn't hard to give it just that little bit of extra kick for running video files.
you can get a GPU for like $34 that will work on an older PC (AGP probly?) it isn't hard to give it just that little bit of extra kick for running video files.
ATi's still supporting AGP. Nvidia stopped quite a while ago, though they supported PCI for far longer.
you can get a GPU for like $34 that will work on an older PC (AGP probly?) it isn't hard to give it just that little bit of extra kick for running video files.
ATi's still supporting AGP. Nvidia stopped quite a while ago, though they supported PCI for far longer.
Yeah i think you can get a 3 series card that is AGP for really really cheap.
Edit: Apparently you can even get stuff like 4650's in AGP format.
Heres a good list.
you can get a GPU for like $34 that will work on an older PC (AGP probly?) it isn't hard to give it just that little bit of extra kick for running video files.
ATi's still supporting AGP. Nvidia stopped quite a while ago, though they supported PCI for far longer.
Yeah i think you can get a 3 series card that is AGP for really really cheap.
Edit: Apparently you can even get stuff like 4650's in AGP format.
Heres a good list.
true, but to what end???
A faster card with, say, 1GB of ram won't help him play any newer games. My current machine is only a P4-3GHz (older socket 478), and even if I upgraded from the Geforce 6200 I have to a Radeon 3 series, I'm probably not gonna see the kind of difference that would allow me to play something like Crysis or Street Fighter 4 at decent quality and framerates. I could see the upgrade if I were running a socket 939 Athlon 64 or something, but not my P4, and definitely not the OP's 1.7GHz jobbie.
I have a Celeron 2.6GHz with a gig of RAM and a 512MB 8400GS (PCI), and there are a shitload of games on Steam that this machine can play.
A machine like that is by no means useless. There was a time when a 1.7GHz Athlon was the fastest shit on the block. Go back and look for games from that time period.
you can get a GPU for like $34 that will work on an older PC (AGP probly?) it isn't hard to give it just that little bit of extra kick for running video files.
ATi's still supporting AGP. Nvidia stopped quite a while ago, though they supported PCI for far longer.
Yeah i think you can get a 3 series card that is AGP for really really cheap.
Edit: Apparently you can even get stuff like 4650's in AGP format.
Heres a good list.
true, but to what end???
A faster card with, say, 1GB of ram won't help him play any newer games. My current machine is only a P4-3GHz (older socket 478), and even if I upgraded from the Geforce 6200 I have to a Radeon 3 series, I'm probably not gonna see the kind of difference that would allow me to play something like Crysis or Street Fighter 4 at decent quality and framerates. I could see the upgrade if I were running a socket 939 Athlon 64 or something, but not my P4, and definitely not the OP's 1.7GHz jobbie.
A faster card will allow him to run HD video content, or at least it may. If you're hardware-accelerating video playback, you don't need a whole lot of CPU horsepower. Same for recording television...many TV tuners have on-board encoding/decoding hardware, so you can get by with a minimal CPU.
Really, though, it sounds more like a candidate for a fileserver/print server/torrent box. But if you're going to go that route, you MAY want to look into getting a more efficient power supply for it (it possible...meaning if it's not proprietary like some Dells or other makes). Leaving something like that on 24/7 (or even just most of the time) can add up pretty quickly, power-wise. And though we like to ignore it, that DOES cost money.
you can get a GPU for like $34 that will work on an older PC (AGP probly?) it isn't hard to give it just that little bit of extra kick for running video files.
ATi's still supporting AGP. Nvidia stopped quite a while ago, though they supported PCI for far longer.
Yeah i think you can get a 3 series card that is AGP for really really cheap.
Edit: Apparently you can even get stuff like 4650's in AGP format.
Heres a good list.
true, but to what end???
A faster card with, say, 1GB of ram won't help him play any newer games. My current machine is only a P4-3GHz (older socket 478), and even if I upgraded from the Geforce 6200 I have to a Radeon 3 series, I'm probably not gonna see the kind of difference that would allow me to play something like Crysis or Street Fighter 4 at decent quality and framerates. I could see the upgrade if I were running a socket 939 Athlon 64 or something, but not my P4, and definitely not the OP's 1.7GHz jobbie.
I wasnt talking about games. I was talking in terms of media and video for the purpose of a media file PC to stream off of. A video card of reasonable quality is pretty much needed for that type of thing. Which is why i suggested cheap cards.
Do you have any sort of home LAN or wirless network? You could throw a bigger hard drive in there and run it as a media server.
+1
give it a ton of hard drive space, as much as you could fit, and then use it as a file server. These types of machines also make awesome dedicated Torrent boxes if you are into that kind of thing.. it doesn't even need its own display. You can use a torrent program (can't remember which one) and set it up for control from another computer.
If it's XP or above you can also just use Remote Desktop and use any torrent program.
I have a computer of similar vintage running Windows 98 so I can run various games that are a pig to get working on anything newer: System Shock 2, Deus Ex, Thief 2, the XCOM series, etc.
That's a nice list, but keep in mind that Kmandla's definition of "very old" is a machine with about a quarter of the power of the one in OP has. ;-)
If you look at his other posts, keep in mind that you do not need to do the stuff he does on his machines to run Linux. Seriously, if it's over 1GHz and has 512 Mb RAM, Ubuntu will run fine on it.
Posts
Robots Will Be Our Superiors (Blog)
http://michaelhermes.com
+1
give it a ton of hard drive space, as much as you could fit, and then use it as a file server. These types of machines also make awesome dedicated Torrent boxes if you are into that kind of thing.. it doesn't even need its own display. You can use a torrent program (can't remember which one) and set it up for control from another computer.
If it's XP or above you can also just use Remote Desktop and use any torrent program.
Robots Will Be Our Superiors (Blog)
http://michaelhermes.com
For HTPC use yes, you would probably need a beefier CPU/GPU.
Robots Will Be Our Superiors (Blog)
http://michaelhermes.com
Not if he's running SD content. I had an old P4 1.8GHz with 256MB of RAM and integrated video that was my movie/TV show/Etc box for a while. It's something to think about if he doesn't own an HDTV.
Do you have any interest in having a LAN party? Because if so, you've got your dedicated server.
Or you could always get it up and running on a wireless network and snag a decent speaker system and now you've got your mp3 collection plus free streaming Internet Radio in your living room or kitchen.
Dicking around with Linux is also a good idea (and won't invalidate the second or {depending on the game} first options either).
Twitter: busfahrer -- Quake Live: busfahrer -- StarCraft II: busfahrer.184 (EU)
Battle.net
You could use it to explore the various flavors of unix (*BSD, Solaris x86, etc).
ATi's still supporting AGP. Nvidia stopped quite a while ago, though they supported PCI for far longer.
Yeah i think you can get a 3 series card that is AGP for really really cheap.
Edit: Apparently you can even get stuff like 4650's in AGP format.
Heres a good list.
true, but to what end???
A faster card with, say, 1GB of ram won't help him play any newer games. My current machine is only a P4-3GHz (older socket 478), and even if I upgraded from the Geforce 6200 I have to a Radeon 3 series, I'm probably not gonna see the kind of difference that would allow me to play something like Crysis or Street Fighter 4 at decent quality and framerates. I could see the upgrade if I were running a socket 939 Athlon 64 or something, but not my P4, and definitely not the OP's 1.7GHz jobbie.
A machine like that is by no means useless. There was a time when a 1.7GHz Athlon was the fastest shit on the block. Go back and look for games from that time period.
A faster card will allow him to run HD video content, or at least it may. If you're hardware-accelerating video playback, you don't need a whole lot of CPU horsepower. Same for recording television...many TV tuners have on-board encoding/decoding hardware, so you can get by with a minimal CPU.
Really, though, it sounds more like a candidate for a fileserver/print server/torrent box. But if you're going to go that route, you MAY want to look into getting a more efficient power supply for it (it possible...meaning if it's not proprietary like some Dells or other makes). Leaving something like that on 24/7 (or even just most of the time) can add up pretty quickly, power-wise. And though we like to ignore it, that DOES cost money.
I wasnt talking about games. I was talking in terms of media and video for the purpose of a media file PC to stream off of. A video card of reasonable quality is pretty much needed for that type of thing. Which is why i suggested cheap cards.
http://kmandla.wordpress.com/2007/09/14/things-to-do-with-an-old-computer/
This makes me wonder what other common household items would turn into if the man with the magic scrotum came into them.
Teamviewer!
That's a nice list, but keep in mind that Kmandla's definition of "very old" is a machine with about a quarter of the power of the one in OP has. ;-)
If you look at his other posts, keep in mind that you do not need to do the stuff he does on his machines to run Linux. Seriously, if it's over 1GHz and has 512 Mb RAM, Ubuntu will run fine on it.
Yeah.
Way outside my definition of a very old computer.
geez, I reckon you need a new GPU
depending on what games you play